I'm saying that was a sticking point in the negotiation, and the extra cash from the USA and other first-world nations was intended to help smooth the gears. Fair or not, I'm not sure. But this kind of negotiation never leaves you with everything you want.

I also don't think it's true to say that the agreement makes it "okay" for China to increase their pollution output. That was part of the point, to sweeten the pot to get them in the agreement so they would start taking steps to reduce pollution. Based on what I can find, it seems like they have been holding up their end of the deal:

Do you have some kind of specific expertise here? Is there evidence that China has not been negotiating in good faith here? If so, I'll look at it.

Again, the Obama administration pledged to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 as well as to commit up to $3 billion in aid for poorer countries by 2020. (The United States has delivered $1 billion to date.) China vowed that its emissions would peak around 2030 and that it would get about 20 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by then.

Are you saying that Trump should not be concerned about the fairness of the agreement and the fact that it puts a disproportionate obligation on the U.S. versus China because Obama sweetened the deal to get China to agree four years ago?

(As for... Do you have some kind of specific expertise here? Is there evidence that China has not been negotiating in good faith here? If so, I'll look at it. -No, No. nice pivot)

Are you saying that Trump should not be concerned about the fairness of the agreement and the fact that it puts a disproportionate obligation on the U.S. versus China because Obama sweetened the deal to get China to agree four years ago?

I'm saying I'm not certain it's disproportionate. Large countries' economies cannot turn on a dime. It may well have been true that the United States was in a better position to offer greater reductions than China was at the time (certainly that's the argument made by people who worked in the Obama administration). In the future the situation might be different, hence the terms of the agreement being open to renegotiation after a fixed period of time.

I am also highly skeptical that Trump is actually concerned about the "fairness" of the agreement as compared to other nations. Given that he has in the past opined that global warming is a "hoax" perpetuated by the Chinese, I suspect that he simply wants to get out of commitments to cut greenhouse emissions entirely.

However, I am also open to being proven wrong, so I also asked if you had more evidence to support Trump's position over Obama's. Call it a pivot if you must, but I think that's the next natural place for this debate to go.

"Leading from behind" & "Feckless", remember these? The first is a description of Trump on NATO and the second is Trump's stance on renewable energy and climate change. What will Comey say when he testifies and will Trump have the balls to exert executive privilege?

I'm saying I'm not certain it's disproportionate. Large countries' economies cannot turn on a dime. It may well have been true that the United States was in a better position to offer greater reductions than China was at the time (certainly that's the argument made by people who worked in the Obama administration). In the future the situation might be different, hence the terms of the agreement being open to renegotiation after a fixed period of time.

I am also highly skeptical that Trump is actually concerned about the "fairness" of the agreement as compared to other nations. Given that he has in the past opined that global warming is a "hoax" perpetuated by the Chinese, I suspect that he simply wants to get out of commitments to cut greenhouse emissions entirely.

However, I am also open to being proven wrong, so I also asked if you had more evidence to support Trump's position over Obama's. Call it a pivot if you must, but I think that's the next natural place for this debate to go.

The United States has reduced emissions every year since 2006. China has increased emissions every year since 2006. In 2011, China produced almost double emissions than US. We promised to cut more 30% of our already reduced emissions by 2030. They said they will stop increasing their now more than double emissions in 2030. You linked one of their scientists saying they can do better. We are paying countries to get greener. They are not. You think they are sharing the burden. This is crazy.

The United States has reduced emissions every year since 2006. China has increased emissions every year since 2006. In 2011, China produced almost double emissions than US. We promised to cut more 30% of our already reduced emissions by 2030. They said they will stop increasing their now more than double emissions in 2030. You linked one of their scientists saying they can do better. We are paying countries to get greener. They are not. You think they are sharing the burden. This is crazy.

The U.S. economy was also further along than China's. Again, I don't know enough about how these different countries' economies were situated to know for sure (I suspect none of us here do), but I can see how China might see an immediate demand to get down to U.S. levels of emissions as an unfairly harsh burden, given how much their economy relies on manufacturing, and given that countries like the U.S. went through similar periods of extreme industrial production without facing such restrictions.

So it might not actually be crazy. I mean, I'd love to wave a magic wand and make every county get their carbon emissions down to a certain level, but I'm thinking the reality is more complex.

Maybe you can argue that Obama was not tough enough in these negotiations in imposing the United States' will and should have gotten harsher restrictions on China. Could be true. But if you think Trump's action yesterday was a prelude to negotiating tougher climate standards, then I've got some swampland in Florida to sell you.

The U.S. economy was also further along than China's. Again, I don't know enough about how these different countries' economies were situated to know for sure (I suspect none of us here do), but I can see how China might see an immediate demand to get down to U.S. levels of emissions as an unfairly harsh burden, given how much their economy relies on manufacturing, and given that countries like the U.S. went through similar periods of extreme industrial production without facing such restrictions.

So it might not actually be crazy. I mean, I'd love to wave a magic wand and make every county get their carbon emissions down to a certain level, but I'm thinking the reality is more complex.

Maybe you can argue that Obama was not tough enough in these negotiations in imposing the United States' will and should have gotten harsher restrictions on China. Could be true. But if you think Trump's action yesterday was a prelude to negotiating tougher climate standards, then I've got some swampland in Florida to sell you.

The U.S. economy was also further along than China's. Again, I don't know enough about how these different countries' economies were situated to know for sure (I suspect none of us here do), but I can see how China might see an immediate demand to get down to U.S. levels of emissions as an unfairly harsh burden

They might. Did some imaginary post ask them to do so? How about they promise to reduce to 10% below their current level by 2030?

But if you think Trump's action yesterday was a prelude to negotiating tougher climate standards, then I've got some swampland in Florida to sell you.

No, but many countries, such as China, are taking our manufacturing jobs. These countries refuse to regulate and have been ignoring this for a long time in the face of the same evidence that many here are touting. Trump would likely agree to continue to reduce emissions if it actually leveled the playing field a bit. I do not think he is against the environment. He is against the U. S. taking a higher piece of the burden.

Why wouldn't people quit smoking even they know it fxxk up their lungs?

This is a softball. The reason is that the models for smoking are untrustworthy junk science. I've yet to see a model that will accurately tell me when smoking will cause me to contract emphysema or lung cancer and when I will die. You suckers believe all of the anti-smoking propaganda but it's just fear mongering from the left who have a vested interest in limiting the economic production of the tobacco plant. I haven't figured out what that interest is but will let you all know when I do.

I can only assume you are a non- scientist with zero business background. There are no models to predict exactly when a person will die of cancer; however that doesn't mean that there is zero link between carcinogens and cancer. As far as lung cancer the problem is that investigating and treating and preventing lung cancer is simply bad business. While lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer, research by comparison is woefully underfunded.You won't be able to predict lung cancer outcomes if you don't do the research. The tobacco lobby restricting research does not prove that smoking and cancer are not related. And FYI the term used now is COPD, not emphysema, or bronchitis or...

We have entered an era of REGRESSIVE politics where a significant portion of the US population wants to go back a hundred years, stick their heads in the sand, and ignore the world around them.

Unit2Sucks;842843977 said:

This is a softball. The reason is that the models for smoking are untrustworthy junk science. I've yet to see a model that will accurately tell me when smoking will cause me to contract emphysema or lung cancer and when I will die. You suckers believe all of the anti-smoking propaganda but it's just fear mongering from the left who have a vested interest in limiting the economic production of the tobacco plant. I haven't figured out what that interest is but will let you all know when I do.

I can only assume you are a non- scientist with zero business background. There are no models to predict exactly when a person will die of cancer; however that doesn't mean that there is zero link between carcinogens and cancer. As far as lung cancer the problem is that investigating and treating and preventing lung cancer is simply bad business. While ling cancer kills more women than breast cancer, research by comparison is woefully underfunded.You won't be able to predict lung cancer outcomes if you don't do the research. The tobacco lobby restricting research does not prove that smoking and cancer are not related. And FYI the term used now is COPD, not emphysema, or bronchitis or...

We have entered an era of REGRESSIVE politics where a significant portion of the US population wants to go back a hundred years, stick their heads in the sand, and ignore the world around them.

I can only assume you are a non- scientist with zero business background. There are no models to predict exactly when a person will die of cancer; however that doesn't mean that there is zero link between carcinogens and cancer. As far as lung cancer the problem is that investigating and treating and preventing lung cancer is simply bad business. While lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer, research by comparison is woefully underfunded.You won't be able to predict lung cancer outcomes if you don't do the research. The tobacco lobby restricting research does not prove that smoking and cancer are not related. And FYI the term used now is COPD, not emphysema, or bronchitis or...

We have entered an era of REGRESSIVE politics where a significant portion of the US population wants to go back a hundred years, stick their heads in the sand, and ignore the world around them.

I consider it satire, and let's be honest there probably are people somewhere genuinely making the same argument so it could be representative of a genuine argument in addition to satire of the global warming denier movement.

"America is living through a fractured fairy tale, in the grip of a lonely and uninformed mad king, an arrogant and nave princeling, a comely but complicit blond princess and a dyspeptic, dystopian troll under the bridge."Maureen Dowd, NY Times

I have family in the South, making the same statements. It's not satire, it's blind faith and religious conviction. Hey my mother and aunt watch Fox News 24/7 for them it's the status quo argument, not satire. BTW my wife died of COPD at 54, two years after finally quitting smoking. In retrospect I find it a matter of a national failing that we seem to support research into diseases that reflect a relative few but hardly fund efforts to treat/cure the diseases that kill most of us. Back in the sixties I had learned of the dangers of asbestos, In the late 70s I worked for a Navy that was working hard to discredit the research, and 7 years ago my father-in-law died of mesothelioma. That covers a long period of time without a meaningful change in prognosis. I've realized that when science can be discredited by politicians; there is no progress and that is our present problem.

Unit2Sucks;842844041 said:

I consider it satire, and let's be honest there probably are people somewhere genuinely making the same argument so it could be representative of a genuine argument in addition to satire of the global warming denier movement.

This is a softball. The reason is that the models for smoking are untrustworthy junk science. I've yet to see a model that will accurately tell me when smoking will cause me to contract emphysema or lung cancer and when I will die. You suckers believe all of the anti-smoking propaganda but it's just fear mongering from the left who have a vested interest in limiting the economic production of the tobacco plant. I haven't figured out what that interest is but will let you all know when I do.

The models used to bolster the theory of catastrophic anthropomorphic global warming are not just untrustworthy, they've been proven to be flat out wrong, so the smoking/cancer metaphor really falls flat here. Nearly all climate model projections have wildly and consistently overshot observed temperatures ever since the IPCC started putting out its climate models in the 1980s:

Even if you haven't taken a lot of stat/maths classes at Cal, you should be able to tell that the relationship between climate models and actual temperature observations (shown in blue and green on the graph above) is extremely tenuous. In comparison, that between smoking and lung cancer is airtight:

So you really have no leg to stand on when you're reducing climate skeptics to tobacco industry hacks.

So you really have no leg to stand on when you're reducing climate skeptics to tobacco industry hacks.

What about when they are the same hacks? Is the Heartland Institute credible when discussing climate science? They have a history of denying that smoking has ill effects. They even once said Joe Camel was innocent.

What about when they are the same hacks? Is the Heartland Institute credible when discussing climate science? They have a history of denying that smoking has ill effects. They even once said Joe Camel was innocent.

Planned Parenthood sterilized thousands of lower-income and minority women without their consent in the 1970s. It doesn't mean that they're out to do the same today.

The idea that climate skeptics are paid industry hacks is totally false, because they risk their careers in academia and think tanks if they go against the prevailing alarmist narrative. There is far more money flowing on the alarmist/warmist side because they get the billions from NGOs and foundations, and because Wall Street is fully on board. The carbon trade market is set to reach $10 trillion per year in the next decade. This dwarfs the coal industry.

The oil industry is fully on board, BP, Mobil and Exxon have been funding mainstream global warming research in amounts well beyond PR levels, they've positioned themselves to profit from the carbon trade market. Rationing oil production keeps oil prices high, and there is a huge upside for them in the carbon trade market, whose structure mirrors that of Enron. Enron has helped set the framework of the carbon trade market back in the 1990s under Clinton-Gore, and paid environmental groups millions to promote it.

The money in the carbon trade market comes from higher utility bills and higher energy prices, which are passed on to consumers through higher heating, transport and food prices. The middle class also pays the price through the loss of jobs in industries that are sensitive to energy prices like steel and paper.

When you think of "climate deniers", you think of hacks paid by the Koch brothers, when in fact they are mostly academics and researchers who become marginalized because they don't espouse the warmist narrative. This is the case of Dr. Judith Curry, who was the former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Tech, who was pushed out of the faculty because of her scientific research:

In the case of the Heartland Institute, it's literally the same CEO. He used to argue smoking was safe and then (I'm sure once the checks cleared) he stopped arguing the position. He was called on it a few years back and reluctantly had to confirm everything he had previously said.

The only thing that has changed is the people writing his checks. In addition to being a paid hack for the climate denial industry and tobacco, he's taken on other similar industry funded positions on fracking, healthcare and education among others. You might very well be on a first name basis with every credentialed climate change skeptic but that doesn't overwhelm the evidence of climate change.

In a few years when climate change denial is no longer a big enough business he will probably get paid to take the wrong side of some other environmental or health issue and my guess is you will coincidentally be on the same side as him. What's sad is that you don't seem to have a profit motive, you just always seem to take a contrarian position.

In the case of the Heartland Institute, it's literally the same CEO. He used to argue smoking was safe and then (I'm sure once the checks cleared) he stopped arguing the position. He was called on it a few years back and reluctantly had to confirm everything he had previously said.

The only thing that has changed is the people writing his checks. In addition to being a paid hack for the climate denial industry and tobacco, he's taken on other similar industry funded positions on fracking, healthcare and education among others. You might very well be on a first name basis with every credentialed climate change skeptic but that doesn't overwhelm the evidence of climate change.

In a few years when climate change denial is no longer a big enough business he will probably get paid to take the wrong side of some other environmental or health issue and my guess is you will coincidentally be on the same side as him. What's sad is that you don't seem to have a profit motive, you just always seem to take a contrarian position.

I came to my position on global warming through research, not by impulse or out of political belief. I was on the warmist side just a few years ago. I've done a lot of research on the subject because I have been working in the field of sustainable real estate as a developer, with a park of over one million trees on my properties.

I think that anyone with a decent scientific background and an open mind who goes through the effort of doing the research will come to the same conclusions. There are a lot of counter-intuitive aspects to this issue, and angles that have been distorted in the media and across many parts of the research community.

One of them is the portrayal of "deniers" as shills or dupes of the energy industry, or as narrow-minded right wing anti-science ideologues. The other myth is the "97% consensus", when in fact the proportion of scientists who don't agree with CAGW is more like 20-25% (granted still not the majority, but the picture is not that of "settled science" /97% consensus).

I've mentioned Edward Teller and Judith Curry as bright people and experts on the skeptical side, there are many others who like them aren't on the Heartland Institute payroll or part of any other astroturfed outfits.

Roger Revelle, who might arguably be the most influential alumnus in the history of our university as the father of the greenhouse gas global warming theory, would also qualify as a skeptic today (probably the reason his name has not become a household name). In his opinion, the impact of human-generated CO2 is not high enough to warrant the kind of huge and very costly voluntary sacrifices mandated by the Paris Agreement, I'll quote again from his 1992 policy report (link ) urging prudence on the subject of CAGW:

"...Should the United States assume "leadership" in a hastily-conceived campaign that could cripple the global economy, or would it be more prudent to assure first, through scientific research, that the problem is both real and urgent?

We can sum up our conclusions in a simple message: The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.

... There is major uncertainty and disagreement about whether this increase [in observed CO2 levels] has caused a change in the climate during the last century. There is also disagreement in the scientific community about predicted future changes as a result of further increases in greenhouse gases. The models used to calculate future climate are not yet good enough because the climate balancing processes are not sufficiently understood, nor are they likely to be good enough until we gain more understanding through observations and experiments.

As a consequence, we cannot be sure whether the next century will bring a warming that is negligible or a warming that is significant. Finally, even if there are a global warming and associated climate changes, it is debatable whether the consequences will be good or bad; likely some places on the planet would benefit, some would suffer.

...Has there been a climate effect caused by the increase of greenhouse gases in the last decades? The data are ambiguous to say the least. Advocates for immediate action profess to see a global warming of about 0.5 degrees C since 1880, and point to record global temperatures in the 1980s and the warmest year on record in 1990. Most atmospheric scientists tend to be cautious, however; they call attention to the fact that the greatest temperature increase occurred before the major rise in greenhouse gas concentration. It was followed by a quarter-century decrease between 1940 and 1965 when concern arose about an approaching ice age!

[U]Conclusion[/U]

Drastic, precipitous and, especially, unilateral steps to delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and prosperity and increase the human costs of global poverty, without being effective. Stringent controls enacted now would be economically devastating particularly for developing countries for whom reduced energy consumption would mean slower rates of economic growth without being able to delay greatly the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Yale economist William Nordhaus, one of the few who have been trying to deal quantitatively with the economics of the greenhouse effect, has pointed out that ". . .those who argue for strong measures to slow greenhouse warming have reached their conclusion without any discernible analysis of the costs and benefits. . . ." It would be prudent to complete the ongoing and recently expanded research so that we will know what we are doing before we act. "Look before you leap" may still be good advice. "

------------------------------------

Since 1992, global temperatures have gone up for the rest of that decade, then leveled off in the last two decades, when close to 1/3 of all human-generated CO2 was added to the atmosphere. The observations from the last two decades vindicate Revelle's cautious skepticism.

One of them is the portrayal of "deniers" as shills or dupes of the energy industry, or as narrow-minded right wing anti-science ideologues. The other myth is the "97% consensus", when in fact the proportion of scientists who don't agree with CAGW is more like 20-25% (granted still not the majority, but the picture is not that of "settled science" /97% consensus).

You like to cherry pick the credentialed scientists who are skeptics but that doesn't mean that there aren't influential shills like the Heartland Institute. As for the myth of the 97%, the climate skeptic industry has done a great job discrediting that number but from everything I've seen it's in the ballpark. You probably have some cherrypicked data to back up your 20-25% just like you have with everything else and you would probably enjoy going back and forth all day having a meta-discussion on this point. I hesitated to even address this topic because the whole thing is a huge misdirection by industry interests and their promoters.

I don't really care what is causing climate change, but I do care about the effects. If lowering carbon emissions will reduce the impacts of climate change on this planet, than I am in favor of lowering carbon emissions regardless of how we got here.

I don't really care what is causing climate change, but I do care about the effects. If lowering carbon emissions will reduce the impacts of climate change on this planet, than I am in favor of lowering carbon emissions regardless of how we got here.

Moreover, continuing to get lost in the weeds of arguments about the RATE of change is a pure misdirection. Even if the planet is warming more slowly than we thought, it's still probably a good and prudent idea to cut greenhouse emissions, so long as it's not some massive economy-killer.

Which, of course, was the whole point of the Paris Agreement, written to allow countries the flexibility to figure out their own plans for reducing emissions without damaging their own economies. In the U.S. we'd gotten buy-in from business leaders (traditionally a pretty conservative group). So I'm still not seeing a good defense of Trump's decision to leave it, other than pure politics (playing to the far-right base).

DNI Dan Coats advised associates that the President after a White House meeting asked people to leave the room, but asked CIA Director Pompeo and Coats to stay and then asked for their help in quashing the investigation of Flynn. Sounds sort of familiar. If true, puts obstruction on the table. My guess on what Mueller will discover is the depth of Trump's financial dealings with the Russians. This is the secret that he is trying to protect . Now there are problems with Flynn, Manafort, Page, Sessions, Kushner, maybe Nunez, and the attempts to stop the investigations. One question I have is was Pence involved by virtue of his involvement as head of the transition team?

"The Puerto Rican government and the International Planned Parenthood Federation ran a sterilization program with US government funding, and by 1968 the program had sterilized roughly one third of Puerto Rican women. Numerous studies have shown that misinformation about the procedure caused high rates or regret among sterilized women. Many women were unaware that the procedure was permanent..."

There were other mass sterilization programs targeting minorities, including Black women and Native American women:

"Latina women in Puerto Rico, New York City, and California were specifically targeted by the government for sterilization throughout the 20th century. Black women have also long been the targets of population control and have been disproportionately affected by sterilization abuse. In North Carolina, a state noted for its discriminatory sterilization practices in the 20th century, 65 percent of sterilization procedures were performed on black women, even though only 25 percent of the state’s female population is black."

"...Similar to the experiences of Puerto Rican women and Black women in the United States, Native American women were subjected to coercive population control practices through much of the 20th century. The Indian Health Service, functioning under the control of HEW and the United States Public Health Service, began providing family planning services to Native American families in 1965. Instituting similar practices to those experienced in Puerto Rico, as many as 25% of Native American women between 15-44 years old were sterilized by the 1970s."

"The Puerto Rican government and the International Planned Parenthood Federation ran a sterilization program with US government funding, and by 1968 the program had sterilized roughly one third of Puerto Rican women. Numerous studies have shown that misinformation about the procedure caused high rates or regret among sterilized women. Many women were unaware that the procedure was permanent..."

There were other mass sterilization programs targeting minorities, including Black women and Native American women:

"Latina women in Puerto Rico, New York City, and California were specifically targeted by the government for sterilization throughout the 20th century. Black women have also long been the targets of population control and have been disproportionately affected by sterilization abuse. In North Carolina, a state noted for its discriminatory sterilization practices in the 20th century, 65 percent of sterilization procedures were performed on black women, even though only 25 percent of the state's female population is black."

"...Similar to the experiences of Puerto Rican women and Black women in the United States, Native American women were subjected to coercive population control practices through much of the 20th century. The Indian Health Service, functioning under the control of HEW and the United States Public Health Service, began providing family planning services to Native American families in 1965. Instituting similar practices to those experienced in Puerto Rico, as many as 25% of Native American women between 15-44 years old were sterilized by the 1970s."

As has already been established, you are a deceiver of the worst kind. The International Planned Parenthood organization (founded in India) is different from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which was founded in America and primarily operates in America. When Americans casually talk about Planned Parenthood they are talking about the American Planned Parenthood. By casually conflating the two you are knowingly trying to deceive people. I'm sure Putin loves your act.

Moreover, continuing to get lost in the weeds of arguments about the RATE of change is a pure misdirection. Even if the planet is warming more slowly than we thought, it's still probably a good and prudent idea to cut greenhouse emissions, so long as it's not some massive economy-killer.

Which, of course, was the whole point of the Paris Agreement, written to allow countries the flexibility to figure out their own plans for reducing emissions without damaging their own economies. In the U.S. we'd gotten buy-in from business leaders (traditionally a pretty conservative group). So I'm still not seeing a good defense of Trump's decision to leave it, other than pure politics (playing to the far-right base).

As I was saying above, the rate of warming has been [U]nearly flat[/U] for the past 20 years, as indicated by unbiased air and satellite measurements. During this period, CO2 emissions have not just risen but accelerated; we've added into the atmosphere nearly 50% more CO2 since 97 than the cumulative human CO2 output from the last several centuries, yet there is no corresponding rise in global temperatures...

The guidelines from the Paris agreements would be damaging to the US economy, whole industrial sectors would be at risk. There would be large increases in energy prices, impacting disproportionately the most vulnerable segments, with higher food, transport and heating prices. Carbon taxes are some of the most regressive taxes ever conceived.

On the benefits column, the impact would be negligible at best, and that's under the most alarmist scenario using IPCC models, models that have been proven to be consistently wrong.